Words are rhythm

In working with kids, in her Kids Compose program, Ponella often starts with the spoken word. When kids say a phrase, repeat it, talk back and forth, they discover rhythm. Intonation. She starts with their world and teaches them to invent from that place. Kids took turns standing at the front of the class in groups of four. Ponella asked: “What is your favorite animal?” Kid: “A wolf.” Ponella: “What’s similar?” “A dog.” Ponella: “What else?” “A fox.” She clapped it back to them–one short syllable each: Wolf. Dog. Fox. Ponella: “What’s different?” Kid: “A kitten.” Ponella: “Clap each one.” Kids clapped: Wolf. Dog. Fox. Kitten. They saw the rhythm of different syllable counts. Ponella: “Now mix yourselves up.” Kids clapped: Dog Fox Kitten Wolf. They played with it: Tiger. Dog. Piglet. Hippo. Hippopotamus! Penguin! S-s-s-ssnake! They heard their suggestions turn into rhythmic phrases. As they chanted the short and long animal words, leaning into the short and drawn-out syllables, they learned about rhythm. What it’s made of. How you can mix it up. Play with it. This is the beginning of music.

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Music is fundamental

Cellist, music educator, and Kids Compose creativity cultivator Debbi Ponella launched her 20th year of Kids Compose, excited to be doing it in Brown County, thanks to a ChamberFest educational outreach grant of $7,500. Ponella led kids through what music is made of. We watched as she led third graders in Sprunica, Van Buren, and Helmsburg Elementary Schools through the fundamentals of music—elements they discovered were innate in their own selves. Rhythm. Melody. Intonation. And ideas that inspire music. According to Ponella, “Everyone has a relationship with music. Kids on the playground chant songs or rhymes. People sing in church. There’s folk music. Kids bang on kitchen pots. A mother rocks her baby. We all do something. There’s intonation, there’s rhythm everywhere. Music can apply in so many ways across kids’ lives. They’re breathing together, playing together, and in so doing they’re learning to work with people, learning to collaborate, to think, to listen.” “I see music as finding a way to relate. Music is a way you can express yourself, a way you can learn. I see kids with all different interests connect to a musical expression. It’s a way to connect to the creativity inside them. If speaking up in class is uncomfortable, music can give them another way to express themselves.”

Kids compose

In four-week sessions at each school, kids learned about the basic elements of music and the places they hold in our everyday lives. They learned about individual instruments—their timbres, registers, and how they sound together–and create a melody. Kids worked together in groups, developing ideas about things they liked. Summer break. Favorite foods. Foxy—chica bonnie coming for you. They looked at pictures they had drawn. All these became topics to set to rhythm, then music.